State, Church, and Society

The longevity of Spain's empire in South America can be explained
partly by the successful administration of the colonies. Spain was at
first primarily interested in controlling the independent-minded
conquerors, but its main goal soon became maintaining the flow of
revenue to the crown and collecting the tribute of goods and labor from
the Indian population. To this end, Spain soon created an elaborate
bureaucracy in the New World in which various institutions served as
watchdogs over each other and local officials had considerable autonomy.

Upper Peru, at first a part of the Viceroyalty of Peru, joined the
new Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata (whose capital was Buenos Aires)
when it was created in 1776. The viceroy was aided by the audiencia (council), which was
simultaneously the highest court of appeal in the jurisdiction and, in
the absence of the viceroy, also had administrative and executive
powers. The wealth of Upper Peru and its remoteness from Lima convinced
the authorities in Lima to create an audiencia in the city of Chuquisaca
(present-day Sucre) in 1558. Chuquisaca had become particularly
important as Potosí's administrative and agricultural supply center.
The jurisdiction of the audiencia, known as Charcas, initially covered a
radius of 100 "leagues" (179,600 hectares) around Chuquisaca,
but it soon included Santa Cruz and territory belonging to present-day
Paraguay and, until 1568, also the entire district of Cuzco. The
president of the audiencia had judicial authority as well as
administrative and executive powers in the region, but only in routine
matters; more important decisions were made in Lima. This situation led
to a competitive attitude and the reputation of Upper Peru for
assertiveness, a condition reinforced by the economic importance of the
region.

Spain exercised its control of smaller administrative units in the
colonies through royal officials, such as the corregidor, who represented the king in the municipal governments
that were elected by their citizens. By the early seventeenth century,
there were four corregidores in Upper Peru.

In the late eighteenth century, Spain undertook an administrative
reform to increase revenues of the crown and to eliminate a number of
abuses. It created an intendancy system, giving extensive powers to
highly qualified officials who were directly responsible to the king. In
1784 Spain established four intendancy districts in Upper Peru, covering
the present-day departments of La Paz, Cochabamba, Potosí, and
Chuquisaca.

The Spanish crown at first controlled the local governments
indirectly but centralized procedures as time went on. At first, Viceroy
Francisco de Toledo confirmed the rights of local nobles and guaranteed
them local autonomy. But the crown eventually came to employ Spanish
officials, corregidores de indios, to collect tribute and taxes from the
Indians. Corregidores de indios also imported goods and forced the
Indians to buy them, a widely abused practice that proved to be an
enormous source of wealth for these officials but caused much resentment
among the Indian population.

With the first settlers in Upper Peru came the secular and regular
clergy to begin the conversion of the Indians to Christianity. In 1552
the first bishopric in Upper Peru was established in La Plata; in 1605
La Paz and Santa Cruz also became bishoprics. In 1623 the Jesuits
established the Royal and Pontifical Higher University of San Francisco
Xavier of Chuquisaca, Upper Peru's first university.

Indian reaction to colonial rule and conversion to Christianity
varied. Many Indians adapted to Spanish ways by breaking with their
traditions and actively attempting to enter the market economy. They
also used the courts to protect their interests, especially against new
tribute assessments. Others, however, clung to their customs as much as
possible, and some rebelled against the white rulers. Local, mostly
uncoordinated, rebellions occurred throughout colonial rule. More than
100 revolts occurred in the eighteenth century alone in Bolivia and
Peru.

Although the official Incan religion disappeared rapidly, the Indians
continued their local worship under the protection of local Indian
rulers. But as Christianity influenced the Indians, a new
folk-Catholicism developed, incorporating symbols of the indigenous
religion. Whereas early Indian rebellions were anti-Christian, the
revolts at the end of the sixteenth century were based in messianic
Christian symbolism that was Roman Catholic and anti-Spanish. The church
was tolerant of local Indian religions. In 1582, for example, the bishop
of La Plata permitted the Indians to build a sanctuary for the dark
Virgen de Copacabana on the shores of Lake Titicaca (Copacabana has been
a traditional Aymara religious center ever since).

The conquest and colonial rule were traumatic experiences for the
Indians. Easily susceptible to European diseases, the native population
decreased rapidly. The situation of the Indians worsened in the
eighteenth century when Spain demanded higher tribute payments and
increased mita obligations in an attempt to improve the mining output.

These profound economic and social changes and the breakup of native
culture contributed to the increasing addiction of Indians to alcohol.
Before the Spanish arrived, the Incas had consumed alcohol only during
religious ceremonies. Indian use of the coca leaf also expanded, and,
according to one chronicler, at the end of the sixteenth century
"in Potosí alone, the trade in coca amounts to over half a million
pesos a year, for 95,000 baskets of it are consumed."

Increasing Indian discontent with colonial rule sparked the great
rebellion of Túpac Amaru II. Born José Gabriel Condorcanqui, this
educated, Spanish-speaking Indian took the name of his ancestor, Túpac
Amaru. During the 1770s, he became embittered over the harsh treatment
of the Indians by the corregidores de indios. In November 1780, Túpac
Amaru II and his followers seized and executed a particularly cruel
corregidor de indios. Although Túpac Amaru II insisted that his
movement was reformist and did not seek to overthrow Spanish rule, his
demands included an autonomous region. The uprising quickly became a
full-scale revolt. Approximately 60,000 Indians in the Peruvian and
Bolivian Andes rallied to the cause. After scoring some initial
victories, including defeating a Spanish army of 1,200 men, Túpac Amaru
II was captured and killed in May 1781; nonetheless, the revolt
continued, primarily in Upper Peru. There, a supporter of Túpac Amaru
II, the Indian chief Tomás Catari, had led an uprising in Potosí
during the early months of 1780. Catari was killed by the Spaniards a
month before Túpac Amaru II. Another major revolt was led by Julián
Apaza, a sexton who took the names of the two rebel martyrs by calling
himself Túpac Catari (also spelled Katari). He besieged La Paz for more
than 100 days. Spain did not succeed in putting down all of the revolts
until 1783 and then proceeded to execute thousands of Indians.

In the late eighteenth century, a growing discontent with Spanish
rule developed among the criollos (persons of pure Spanish descent born
in the New World). Criollos began to assume active roles in the economy,
especially in mining and agricultural production, and thus resented the
trade barriers established by the mercantilist policies of the Spanish
crown. In addition, criollos were incensed that Spain reserved all
upperlevel administrative positions for peninsulares (Spanish-born
persons residing in the New World).

The Enlightenment, with its emphasis on reason, questioning of
authority and tradition, and individualistic tendencies, also
contributed to criollo discontent. The Inquisition had not kept the
writings of Niccolò Machiavelli, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine,
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Locke, and others out of Spanish America;
their ideas were often discussed by criollos, especially those educated
at the university in Chuquisaca. At first the criollos of Upper Peru
were influenced by the French Revolution, but they eventually rejected
it as too violent. Although Upper Peru was fundamentally loyal to Spain,
the ideas of the Enlightenment and independence from Spain continued to
be discussed by scattered groups of radicals.